The collapse of Obamacare?

Once it’s passed by Congress and signed by a president, even the most controversial legislation acquires a shield — an appearance of inevitability. Americans may not like the new tax regs, or the plum for federal workers, or the costly farm bill, but hey, it’s now the law.

Adding that protective shield to the health care overhaul known as Obamacare was a core goal of its Democratic godfathers and godmothers in Congress and the White House: Its details, and the political hustle that rammed it into law, were less important than the sense of inevitability and public acceptance that they thought were sure to follow.

More than three years after its passage, though, whatever sense of inevitability Obamacare initially possessed is on life support. And the public acceptance? Public opinion pollsters continue to find majorities of Americans opposed to what they understand of the massive law’s consequences for their health care.

Last week’s stunning disclosure that the Obama administration will delay enforcing a key provision of the law is the latest evidence that Obamacare risks collapsing less because of its foes’ sabotage than because of its own enormous ambitions.

The admission at such a late date that the so-called employer mandate isn’t workable yet further shakes public confidence in health care reform’s fundamental assumption: that something as intimate and central to life as individual Americans’ health care can be consigned to a vast exercise in central planning. At no point in the unfolding history of this enterprise have citizens had so much cause to doubt the central planners — bureaucrats at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Internal Revenue Service, and administration operatives in the West Wing of the White House.

Will Obamacare survive, fall apart, or succumb to repeal under a new president in 2017? Five implications of last week’s retreat on the employer mandate:

â–ŞDelaying from 2014 until 2015 the rule that mid-sized and large employers provide coverage to their workers or pay a penalty risks driving up the cost of Obamacare: Remember, one goal of this mandate was to have employers shoulder, from the get-go, a big share of insurance costs so that taxpayers wouldnÂ’t go broke subsidizing the employeesÂ’ insurance. A delay that lets employers off a payment hook stands to put taxpayers on it.

â–ŞRising expenses would mean more than the usual discomfort for sponsors of any new law that has cost overruns. Republicans already are crowing about President Barack ObamaÂ’s many reiterations of a double-down promise he made to a joint session of Congress on health care in September 2009: Â“I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future. I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period.Â” The likelihood that rolling back this mandate raises the lawÂ’s costs will embolden opponents whoÂ’ll try harder than ever to strip funding from Obamacare as budget negotiations intensify this summer: He said not one dime, remember?

Page 2 of 2 - â–ŞTuesdayÂ’s embarrassment follows the administrationÂ’s earlier and equally reluctant delay of a provision that would have given a choice of insurance plans to workers at small businesses. Those employers instead will do the choosing for employees: A federal pledge of comprehensive coverage may, in the end, yield something much less.

â–ŞEnforcing the employer mandate ought to be a cakewalk compared to the far more complex job of enforcing ObamacareÂ’s individual mandate. The process of guiding millions of Americans through a selection of insurance policies in state-by-state marketplaces, or Â“exchanges,Â” accompanies a requirement that citizens have insurance or pay a penalty to the government. That the feds canÂ’t make the comparatively simple employer mandate work on schedule doesnÂ’t improve the prognosis for the enrollment process scheduled to begin in ... less than 13 weeks.

â–ŞPerhaps most important, the collapse in July 2013 of another pillar of a law signed in March 2010 belies assurances from the president and his party that the federal government Â— and his administration in particular Â— is fully competent to manage a health sector that constitutes one-sixth of the nationÂ’s economy.

As longtime critics of this law — too ambitious, too regimented, too trusting in government’s skill — we’re surprised less that part of the law isn’t ready for prime time than we are by the administration’s late date in acknowledging as much. News coverage of Obamacare’s problems is escalating just as Team Obama ramps up efforts to publicize the scheduled Oct. 1 rollout of state exchanges and individual enrollment. A tough sell just got tougher.

Republicans want to kill it, not rescue it. With this fresh blood in the water, they’re even better armed to criticize the Affordable Healthcare Act in future budget fights and election cycles.

More telling is the silence elsewhere.

After last Tuesday’s demure news from the administration — via blog posts, not press conferences or speeches — did anyone see all those national Democrats racing to microphones with ideas to make the law they championed a rousing success?